Morro Bay, CA to Zion N.P.

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THE BASICS
We are headed East! We have even made it from the Pacific to the Mountain Time Zone again! We left Morro Bay last Sunday and are now in Leeds, Utah, within range of Zion National Park. In between, three days in Las Vegas gave us a taste of that unusual city.

THE FLUFF
I remember saying what a relief the fog was, after so much hot sun. Well... We did get tired of the overcast by the Pacific. It was nice when the sun broke through, but mostly we had a crown of gray.

John remembered visiting family in Pismo Beach so we drove down there. The town struck us as being a bit seedy, but the hordes of surfers offered some redemption. As did the fabulous cinnamon roll which we split. En route, we had passed through huge fields of vegetables and wondered about the bright orange and yellow plots which punctuated them. Turns out that the area south of there produces most of the world's supply of seeds of common annuals, and we were getting a peek at the marigolds which would end up in seed packets next winter.

We enjoyed watching horses on the beach, six of them weaving in and out in what looked like a square dance figure, obviously practicing for a performance somewhere.

Sunday started bright and sunny, but soon reverted to fog as we turned eastward and headed back over the coastal mountains for what became a day full of mild surprises, quite interesting. By the time we reached Bakersfield, we were ready for a midday break. John suggested that we go to the Kern County Museum. Kern County is an immense and varied region of California. The Museum was really cool; it consisted of dozens of buildings which had actually been in the area and which various folks had had moved there. So we saw examples of saloons, drug stores, general stores, and all manner of homes, from shacks to fancy Victorian styles. Also, there was a large section devoted to oil drilling - coming near Bakersfield, we had seen hundreds of oil rigs clustered, and pumping away. (Up in North Dakota, the rigs had been few and far between, because modern rigs can send out pipes in all directions underground. But the older style, as in Bakersfield, only drilled straight down.)

And just to make the Museum even more fun, there were dozens of California hot rods, as shiny and spiffy as could be, with their proud owners hanging around in groups. It just happened to be a "Rod Run", whatever that means. We felt totally in California, with all of those wonderful cars.

As we continued, on the nearly desolate James Dean Memorial Highway, we passed miles of almond groves, and had to stop at James Dean's Last Stop to buy a bag of fresh almonds. We climbed, again, and saw the Tehauchan Loop, which is a huge railroad loop that a clever engineer designed to get trains over that mountain range south to Los Angeles. We kept going, aiming for an RV park in Mojave. As we neared it, we crossed a mountain pass with hundreds of windmills.

Well, Mojave isn't much of a town, just a strip of highway between train tracks and an airfield, dotted with fast food restaurants and gas stations. It was a weird night at that park - train whistles hooted several times an hour. And, oh yeah, those windmills should have clued us in that it might be windy; our RV was a-rocking all night long. Our view out the front window was the Mojave Spaceport, runways at an airfield which is sort of a graveyard for old planes and is used somewhat for training test pilots. John thinks Richard Branson was planning to send civilians into space, for huge hunks of money, from there, but things don't seem to have fully developed. I thought back to a sign I had spotted earlier on a repair garage - one item on the list was "UFO repairs."

Well, this was probably the perfect preparation for Las Vegas.

The next day's sights were not quite as surprising. The road was relatively flat, and the high desert contained Joshua trees. This was the area where 20-Mule Teams actually did haul loads of Borax. We took a break in Barstow to visit the Harvey Hotel Railroad Station, which they are expensively renovating, and which is quite pretty. In front of the station were two main tracks for the Burlington Northern and two for the Santa Fe, and many other tracks to serve them. I was interested to learn that soon freight trains will be allowed to be three miles long.

We stopped at a Tourist Info Center just over the Nevada border - it took us awhile to find it amid the enormous outlet center, casinos, and huge hotels. When we started up again, whoops, the speedometer again did not. We chose to continue the 30 or so miles on to Las Vegas, tensely, and the RV cooperated. We checked into a very attractive park south of town, appropriately named the Oasis, and spent a couple of hours sitting in shade by a pool.

The temperatures were still in the high 90's, and the air conditioning in the truck cab really had to be fixed. So we bit the bullet and drove up to North Las Vegas to a Ford truck dealer, for an estimate on the speedometer and air conditioning. They could do the work the next day, and our credit cards could cover the cost, if crankily. We booked into a nearby motel and rested, and in the late afternoon headed to The Strip.

You can park in a garage at any of the casinos for free, so we did. And a 24-hour bus ticket is $7 each, with open on-off availability. We went to the Bellagio and saw a fountain display to "All That Jazz." Dinner was at Margaritaville, an experience in itself. Then up to the old part of LV, Fremont Street, where an overhead canopy lighted up and thundered with a few of Queen's best songs.

Our first night in a motel on this trip enhanced our love for our RV. We figure there were a bunch of little kids jumping on the floor above us; when someone nearby took a shower, it sounded like a dam had broken in our room; the next morning when the air conditioner started up, the smell of cigarette smoke infused the room. Each time the A.C. went on, and it went on and off a lot, it started with a groan of pain and anguish. I had to turn up the TV quite loud when the AC came on, and then when it suddenly went off, the TV sound was deafening. John wants me to say that the shower was excellent and the breakfast was good.

On the Strip the second day, we strolled through several famous hotels and saw a goofy show at Caesar's Palace about the end of Atlantis. We had to leave to pick up the RV by 5:00, and the heat had tired us anyway. We checked into our third overnight stop in LV, and it was fine. The major event there was the early morning and late afternoon flyovers of up to ten jets headed from Nellis AFBase to a test training site west of there.

We passed a sign for "Zzyzx Road."

The road east of Las Vegas to the end of Nevada was uneventful. But suddenly we were in a far northwest corner of Arizona, and although our maps did not show that we had to go over a mountain range, we did. It was a long and windy road, the kind that ruins Linda's days. Finally we got to Utah and a very helpful Tourist Info guy loaded us up with a tall stack of brochures. John chose an RV park in the small town of Leeds.

From Leeds to Zion is about a 40-mile drive. Unlike the entrances to Yellowstone and Yosemite, which were shop-less and scary roads, the road to Zion passes through several burgeoning retirement communities, and touristy, though tasteful, strips. And it is relatively flat and straight.

At Zion, you park at their Tourist Info Center and then take a shuttle bus into the park. A flat (!) road includes seven stops with appealing hikes at each, and then it turns around and comes back the same route. Our bus driver drove quite slowly, and I was so happy not to feel my life was in danger! On the way "in", there is a very informative canned commentary playing in the bus. People behind us were chatting loudly, and John finally turned around and asked them to be quiet so that we could hear the commentary. I later heard one of them, in a very incensed tone, saying that this incredibly rude man had told them to shut up. Imagine that! Some people are clueless, aren't they?

Zion is breathtaking. The huge cliffs are so tall and colorful. It was hard to figure out where to take photos, since each step yielded a different angle on a gorgeous view. It was the 10-3 bad time of day for photos, especially with a completely clear sky and bright sun, so we will be sure to get post cards. We took a couple of short hikes, on paved paths! Then we went to the Zion Lodge for a light lunch. We sat with a charming French couple who could speak passable English; not all Parisians are stinkers, they proved. After a short hike, we lay on the Lodge lawn under big trees, surrounded by plenty of other families, and we actually both fell asleep.

When we stopped for groceries en route back to Leeds, they were several Mormon women in dresses like I had not seen up near Salt Lake City. They were exactly the prim collared and pleated style that you'd see in a movie or TV show about Mormons, and it felt almost unreal. I exercised restraint to keep from staring. The dresses were pleasant colors, and looked to be of very fine cloth. Again, what a contrast to go from Nevada to Utah, or vice versa!

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